Floppy disks

[veekay]

I have just found an old floppy disk, it seems to have photos on it but I can't get them to open. Is there any thing I can do to retrieve these or do I just bin the disk?

[M R]

Have you tried dragging and dropping the pics from the floppy to the desktop / or other folder ?

May just be that they are a certain format and you don't have the appropiate prog to open them.

[dx100uk]

well 1st off i'd get the files off the floppy before it fails.
as advised drop and drag em or browse the floppy so you have a list of the files on the screen then
from the top of the window showing the files list in the menu bar do

edit -select all
then back to the top menu list
file - send to - desktop [or a floder on your hardisk if you know how to do this.

i'd then look at what extension the files have:

i'e they might list as image001.XXX [whare XXX is the extension]

if you dont see an extension listed

then you need to turn this on which can again be done from a windows explorer menu bar:

tools
folder options
view
untick box which says hide extensions for known file types

then you should see then you should see then extension as above

post up the extension and we'll tell you what you need to view them

hth

dx

[EDDIE]

I have just found an old floppy disk, it seems to have photos on it but I can't get them to open. Is there any thing I can do to retrieve these or do I just bin the disk?

Its a long time since i have seen a floppy have floppy disc got a plastic switch u push a long that prevents u from deleteing files? a bit like sd cards have,

[Matthew]

Its a long time since i have seen a floppy have floppy disc got a plastic switch u push a long that prevents u from deleteing files? a bit like sd cards have,

Yep, you are right. You need to flick the switch on the floppy disk and it should work.

[Bobinovich]

The plastic tab simply stops you from writing, or conversely enables you to write to, the disk - it does not affect the readability of the files, so they should eb accessible no matter what position the tab is on.

Its much more likely the disk has, like so many floppy disks before it, failed over time, although it may be possible to recover some or all of the data on it.

Much better to use a USB flash drive or external hard drive for short term backups these days - better reliability and capacity!

[Matthew]

Oh yeah. My bad! Been ages since I used them :X